Man, Time Warner Cable -- you are some shady players. Hot on the heels of the ISP's decision to withdraw DOCSIS 3.0 trials from areas that have rejected its tiered billing plan, we're hearing that TWC's teamed up with Embarq to persuade the North Carolina state governme... (more)
Despite 20 years of research and 13 years of commercialisation, genetic engineering has failed to significantly increase crop yields in the United States, while traditional breeding continues to deliver better results, according to a new study by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
The UCS is a non-profit group founded in 1969 by faculty and students of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that advocates practical policy based solely... (more)
We all want to be wise and careful stewards of the beautiful planet we call home. However, certain aspects of the modern green movement that is permeating every segment of our society are not about protecting the environment. You don’t have to dig very deep to discover the true beliefs of the influential leaders who are using genuine concerns about the environment to promote an agenda of fear and control. Please carefully consider the implications of the opinions that they so openly and... (more)
The statement issued by the US Environmental Protection Agency is expected to pave the way for new regulations of cars, power plants, building sites and factories by identifying carbon dioxide and five other gases as pollutants.
Environmental groups applauded it as a landmark decision that would allow Barack Obama to meet his call for a low carbon economy but industry groups warned that the so-called "endangerment finding" could cripple the struggling US economy.
ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap.
The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent's western coast.
Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth's ice and 80 per cent of its fresh water. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets w... (more)
President Barack Obama is considering a radical plan to tackle global warming by firing pollution particles into the stratosphere to deflect some of the sun’s heat.
The controversial experiment was touted yesterday as a possible last resort to help cool the Earth’s air by the president’s new science advisor John Holdren.
‘It’s got to be looked at. We don’t have the luxury of taking any approach off the table,’ said Mr Holdr... (more)
Not every crazy idea, say dropping out of Harvard to start a software firm, is a bad one. But you don't have to be Bill Gates to place your bets that way. Consider atmospheric geoengineering — pumping reflective particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight — seen as a way to cut the effects of global warming. In 1991, the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines cooled the atmosphere's average temperature worldwide almost one degree Fahrenheit, a kind of "global dimming," ... (more)
Social networks such as Twitter may blunt people's sense of morality, claim brain scientists.
New evidence shows the digital torrent of information from networking sites could have long-term damaging effects on the emotional development of young people's brains.
A study suggests rapid-fire news updates and instant social interaction are too fast for the 'moral compass' of the brain to process.
The danger is that heavy Twitters and Facebook users could... (more)
If one thing more than any other is used to justify proposals that the world must spend tens of trillions of dollars on combating global warming, it is the belief that we face a disastrous rise in sea levels. The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will melt, we are told, warming oceans will expand, and the result will be catastrophe.
Although the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) only predicts a sea level rise of 59cm (17 inches) by 2100, Al Gore in his Oscar-win... (more)
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon wants to rocket troops through space to hot spots anywhere on the globe within two hours, and planners spent two days last month discussing how to do it, military documents show.
Civilian and military officials held a two-day conference at the National Security Space Office to plan development of the Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion (SUSTAIN) program. The invitation to the conference called the notion of space troopers a "potential revolutio... (more)
The Australian communications regulator says it will fine people who hyperlink to sites on its blacklist, which has been further expanded to include several pages on the anonymous whistleblower site Wikileaks.
Wikileaks was added to the blacklist for publishing a leaked document containing Denmark's list of banned websites.
The move by the Australian Communications and Media Authority comes after it threatened the host of online broadband discussion forum Whirlpool ... (more)
Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.
Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.
The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day.
Paying attention isn't a simple act of self-discipline, but a cognitive ability with deep neurobiological roots -- and this complex faculty, says Maggie Jackson, is being woefully undermined by how we're living.
So, there are these two scientists researching artificial intelligence. One is Satinder S Baveja, director of the University of Michigan's AI laboratory; the other is Miles Bennett Dyson, director of research at Cyberdyne Systems of California. Both men are asked to reflect on what the ultimate outcome of their work on AI will look like. Might it, for example, get a little bit dystopian out there?
This is how each responds. One says: "Our noses are too firmly pressed into our work... (more)
Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance.
Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on at Google News, where we are assured that:
The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically
The significance is simple, a few months ago if you Googled "informationliberation" 250,000 results would be returned. Now if you search it 26,000 25,500 return. - IL
Next week sees the start of the long-awaited Pirate Bay trial. With the eyes of the world on Sweden, Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge argues that there is much more at stake than the future of the site's operators.
The world has changed. Technical developments allow all of us to collect, store and share digitized information on an unimagined scale. The cost of storage, bandwidth and processing power is, for business purposes, essentially zero.
Scientists are genetically engineering goats to produce the same milk as a human mother.
They claim the breakthrough will allow babies whose mothers can't feed them to receive all the goodness of breast milk.
Researchers behind the experiments reject fears of Dr Frankenstein-style tinkering with nature.
They say their work will also lead to the development of medicines exploiting the antibiotic qualities of lactoferrin, a protein found in women's mi... (more)
Alex Jones discusses Internet censorship with one of YouTube's biggest users.
This infuriates me.
Please note: A year ago if you searched "informationliberation" on Google I would get 225,000 results. Now if you do it you get 26,000. The site has only grown in this time and links to the site have of course grown drastically. There is no reason for them to de-index us beyond for political censorship, I feel sick to my stomach over this. - Chris
